Do you have to learn all the different strumming techniques to be a lead guitarist

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I am in Grade 3 beginners. My weakness is strumming. There are so many different types of strumming techniques. My goal is to play lead guitar. Do I need to know all these different styles of strumming for that? For people who are further on the journey than me, please feel free to share your wisdom. Thanks

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Hi Shanti,

Good stumming guitar has to do with rhythm, and everything good starts with rhythm/timing… even a solo is always in a rhythm timing… if it with one thing doesn’t go in good rhythm the other won’t work either…

I see a very important course for you here.
Strumming SOS

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Without a solid rhythm foundation your lead play will likely suck. The leadines will very much follow the rhythm of a song. You should therefore have a solid foundation of playing 1/4 1/8 & 1/16 note strumming patterns. You don’t need to know every single pattern but you should be competent and have built a solid foundation.

YMMV

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Ok, I will work on it. Thank you

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Thank you. I will work on rhythm and timing.

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Believe me it’s a must, I was the same before I came on here years ago and unlearning what you were doing wrong is much harder than learning it right in the first place. Getting your timing right relies on being aware of the rhythm, if you’re not good at it your solo playing will suck!

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Thank you

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Nice to meet you, Shanti, Love the name, Rhythm is king, without it we have nothing, learn to love it, my friend, cheers HEC

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You don’t need to know all the strumming techniques to play lead guitar, but you should be competent rhythm player to play lead. Lead and rhythm are interconnected in many ways. Your lead and/or improvisation cannot exist in a vacuum. Your timing, phrasing, note selection in improvisation, dynamics (fast/slow, soft/loud) will be influenced by rhythm/chord progression.

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To add to all the great answers above, even if you’re a lead guitarist, you still will be playing rhythm parts most of the time. There are songs with several minutes long solos, but it’s rather an exception with most solos being 8-16 bars long. And what are you gonna do for the rest of the song? Right, play rhythm.

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I’m not really sure you can say anyone learns all the strumming patterns. How many patterns are there? It’s not exactly infinite, but especially as you get into 16th notes or even 32nd notes, there are a TON of ways you can add variation. You learn what you use.

So if your goal is to be a lead player, then sure. You need a good grasp of the rhythm of the song to keep in time, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to learn all the strumming patterns, either. Spend time in music publications and you’ll read plenty about lead guitarists who aren’t very good at playing rhythm guitar. Yes, there are a lot who play a sort of hybrid role switching back and forth between lead and rhythm. I think exactly what you do depends on your band and what music you play.

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As Griff Hamlin says, the main difference between a lead guitarist and a rhythm guitarist is where they stand on the stage :joy:.

A lead guitarist spends the vast majority of the time playing rhythm.

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Thank you. Nice to meet you also

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Good advice, thank you

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Thank you

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I understand, thanks. I am better at improvisation while someone is playing the rhythm, but I will attempt to improve.

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ha ha :laughing:

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Hi Shanti,
also, if you go slowly, but steadily, learning always a bit of strumming among the many more things that are fun for you, and easy to slightly harder… it won’t be so difficult.
I just wanted to add a point:
I have a nice guy in my family who played in a school band and has two guitars standing in his home, but when I had mine with me and suggested playing something, he said, oh he only played power chords and some lead at the time, so he states he doesn’t want (or is meaning he can’t) play anything meaningful on an acoustic.
While I never played in a band and “only” learned a bit of guitar online, but could present some song.

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Yes, I understand the feeling. i met a guy at a cafe who was playing guitar and he handed it over to me and I couldn’t play 1 song, but knew how to play pentatonic scales and chords and improvise. I ended up singing with him instead. Ha ha.

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Haha… but singing is great too! :slight_smile: But then, if you can sing, it’s great if you can play some accompaniment strumming along to your singing!

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